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Sunday, July 15, 2007

House selling stinks.

So. You would buy this house...right? Well, I might have to employ the 'ole "if you love me, you'll do it" clause and recruit friends and family to bail us out. We'll move there, you move here...that sort of thing. Because so far (sigh), prospective buyers have been few and far between since we've been on the market.

Everyone has been emailing, asking for an update on how the house selling is going, so I figured - the blog. Yes! I'll write one big depressing update and cover everybody at once.

The house selling is not going. After a somewhat rocky start with our realtor (um...yeah), we are now all on the same page. That page being: we would like to sell our house. With that tiny detail cleared up, everyone is now doing all they can to work towards the same goal. Open Houses. Realtor tours. Drastic price lowerings. Throwing in refrigerators, washers, and dryers to sweeten the deal. Offering buyer incentives. (Grrr.) I honestly don't know what else we can do to get this dude sold (short of saying, "Hey, random person on the street, can we give you our house for free?"). ...And the shame is, it really is a great house!!

The summarized version of our problem is that the builders in the area have screwed us (pardon the bluntness). The west side is the only area of ABQ that can grow (due to mountains and Indian reservations). About six months ago, the builders thought, "Hark! I'll start building like mad over there and strike it stinky rich!" Well, the word got out and all of the builders started throwing up houses out here lightning fast and in obscene quantities (including some from Arizona and California, who swooped in just to get their hands in on the money grubbing game). Seriously. It was insta-city. And, it seems that, whoops, their greed got the better of them. They grossly overestimated the growth rate and bam...just like that, the market turned from a fairly nice seller's market, to a buyer's paradise. Panic set in with the builders, and now to get out from under the heap, they're pretty much giving new houses away. Seriously. Not an exaggeration. 5-6 bedroom/4 bath mansions are going for $250K (Normally they would go for $350-450K.) So. In summary. We. Are. Up a creek.

Yes, indeedy.

We started out with a low list price comparitively and we've already lowered it by $20K, and still nothing is happening. There are around 2,000 houses for sale in our subdivision alone, and in the past 45 days, only four have sold. FOUR. ...1, 2, 3, 4. (That aren't new. I don't know what the "new house sale" count is up to. I really don't even want to know.) There are just waaay too many houses to choose from in our exact same size/description. A buyer could look for three days straight, see a hundred houses, and still never step foot into ours.

On a positive note (yay...here comes the sunshine!), the feedback that we're getting from the realtor tours is all positive - they all go on and on about the "one-of-a-kind" backyard, the paint colors, the floorplan, the nice, open kitchen...yada yada. But so far, it hasn't generated many real viewers. One serious looker came along last weekend, but she was looking to see how much she could profit from our pathetic state and she low-balled us. I would do the same, so I'm not blaming her. It just was disappointing because we got our hopes all sky-high for nothing. All of the others who have passed through here seem to just be occupying a Saturday afternoon - being nosey...eating some free snacks...casing the joint to get their robbery plans in order.

Sheesh-a-reesha.

It's really a major bummer. And when I let myself go to that Kristy-place, I have to admit, it's a wee bit terrifying for me. In about five weeks, we're Arkansas bound. And then we're potentially in a mess. The opinions we've been receiving are that this house won't show near as well without our stuff in it, giving it that nice "homey" feeling. And without me making cookies and creating "happy family" smells when lookers come over, it'll just smell like closed-up, musty house. Plus, with us 1000 miles away and nobody around to tend to the backyard in the dry, hot climate (our realtor is in his seventies, so I don't see him doing much yardwork), things are likely to go south fast for our little "oasis" -- which is supposedly our big selling point.

So.

Hmm. Despite how it sounds, I'm trying to just pray and walk by faith. But, as you can tell from the slightly hysterical undertone of this post, I'm really not doing so swell in my efforts to trust God's timing. I keep giving it to him, and then picking it back up and fretting about it. (Come on, Lord, get busy! is basically what's running through my head.) I guess I'd just like to ask you all to please pray lots over this next month that the perfect buyer will come along soon, specifically before we move. If you want to be even more specific in your prayer requests, pray that a buyer, who really has an aversion to mansions and prefers the quaint quality of used over new, will fall in love with our sweet little home and throw nice big juicy wads of cash at it.

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Sophie-ism Of The Day :

Just discovered Sophie (playing in the sprinkler) holding a ziplock baggie full of suspicious-looking liquid. As soon as I opened the door, she yelled out, "Don't worry, Mama! It's not urine!!" ...Oh, heavenly days.